QCE English External Assessment (EA) quiz

A persuasive piece drafted at home across several weeks, with full access to notes, drafts, teacher feedback, and the texts the whole way through

An oral presentation delivered to the class and assessed by your own teacher on speaking, listening, and delivery skills

A take-home analytical essay completed over a notification period, drawing on the texts and resources of the student's choice

A centrally set and marked exam where you write an analytical essay answering one unseen question about the literary text you studied from the QCAA prescribed list

120 minutes of working time plus 15 minutes of planning time

1 hour of writing with no separate planning time at all

3 hours of writing plus a 30 minute planning period

30 minutes of writing with 10 minutes of planning time

Begin writing your full response straight away, before the working time has officially started

Read the questions, choose one and plan your response, but not write in the response book

Quietly talk through the questions with the students sitting next to you in the exam room

Leave the exam room to collect extra resources or notes before the working time begins

10 percent, with the remaining 90 percent split evenly across the three internal assessments completed during the year

50 percent, with the other 50 percent coming from the three internal assessments combined over Units 3 and 4

25 percent (the other 75 percent comes from the three internal assessments, each worth 25 percent)

75 percent, with the three internal assessments together making up only the remaining 25 percent of the result

Two unrelated texts chosen at random by the assessors, with no link between them

Two persuasive opinion pieces on the same topical issue, with no literary text involved

A short story you have never read, supplied on the day of the exam

One unseen question about the literary text you studied, from the external assessment section of the QCAA prescribed text list

Very little, because the 15 minutes of planning time is for planning; use working time to write

0 minutes of planning at all; start writing immediately

60 minutes

90 minutes

Showing strong personal emotion about the texts, telling the marker how much the writer enjoyed or disliked reading each one

Specific identification of textual features (not generic 'the text uses language') and sustained analysis of what those features produce in the reader

Listing every literary technique you can spot in the text, naming each one in turn without ever explaining the effect that any of them create in the reader

Using as much complex and sophisticated vocabulary as possible, on the assumption that elaborate wording signals discerning analysis

Markers simply ignore the misreading and assess the analysis on its own merits, regardless of whether it answers the task

You are given extra reading time partway through the exam to revise your interpretation once you realise you have misread it

Your response may not address what is being asked, which will affect your mark even if your analysis is otherwise strong

Misreading the task is essentially impossible, since the wording of the EA question is always identical from one year to the next

Rely on bringing your annotated text into the exam, since you are allowed to refer to it while you write

Memorise a bank of quotes from texts you have not studied, on the assumption that one of them will appear in the paper

Avoid practice exams altogether and simply trust that your existing analytical skills will carry you through on the day itself

Learn short quotes and references from across your studied text, and practise full timed essays (15 minutes planning, 120 minutes writing) on questions you have not seen

Draw short, precise quotes and references from across the whole text, not only a few famous passages

Quote long passages in full so the marker can see the text

Rely on plot summary, because the marker already knows the text

Use evidence only in the introduction and conclusion